Here's my latest finish. it doesn't have a name but I guess I could call it the Modern Shwe Shwe challenge. Here's the story.
A couple of summers ago I was with some friends at the Canadian Quilters Association Show in Toronto. At the show there was a display of quilts from the Ottawa Modern Quilt Guild and a part of that show was a display of quilts from a Linen challenge they had done. The three of us had just joined the Grand Valley Modern Quilt Guild and this gave me the idea to have a challenge there. One member of the guild Celeste owns Meerkat Shweshwe, so I thought it would be fun to use shweshwe fabric in our challenge. It's an unusual choice for Modern Quilts.
Shweshwe is a traditional fabric made in South Africa. It has small patterns and has been traditionally available in indigo and brown. More recently it has become available in several brighter colours. You can read about the history on the Meerkat Shweshwe site here.
I got the inspiration for my quilt from some pillow patterns in the book Lines by Design by Debbie Grifka. Here's where I started. Using the techniques in her book for sewing strips with two colours behind them.
The lighter blue and the pink are shweshwe fabrics. The background colours are Kona silver and Kona Regal. They are leftover fabrics from the Quilters Planner Quilt.
Once I had the initial pieces on the design wall I cut and pasted and made more units trying them out in different ways and went from this...
to this...
to this...
to the final result at the top of the post. You can see that during the process I shortened the top blue stripes section and took out the pink stripes on grey. I felt that the quilt was more balanced this way. I quilted with straight line quilting gong in several different directions.
I learned a lot while working on this piece. For one thing I don't sew a straight as I would like to. I think in the future I would spray baste the fabric before starting and that would help in this regard. I did spray baste after I made the stripes but it would have been better to have done it before. Lining up the purple edges as I sewed the pieces together was also quite challenging.
I'm really happy with the resulting quilt and the we had a lot of fun at the guild meeting sharing our challenges. You can see the other quilts here. I'm joining the link ups at Brag About Your Beauties hosted by Michele of From Bolt to Beauty, and at TGIFF which is hosted this week by Fiona at Celtic Thistle Stitches.
11 comments:
I really love how you extended the shwe shwe fabric lines into the background space. Kona Regal is a luscious color but really hard to photograph and get to show correctly (my finish for today uses it as well)! I'm really looking forward to following your link to see the other challenge quilts that were made.
I like this quilt, Lisa. The use of lines is very appealing, and I like your color choices! Sounds like a fun challenge.
Very creative! Well done.
Beautifully done, Lisa! I love how some of the coloured strips extend out into silver. It adds a lot of movement to the quilt :)
This is most definitely a beauty and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the process. Straight lines are a challenge for me too. Happy stitching!
Challenge well met! Thanks for linking your lovely quilt up to TGIFF too
Your effort was well worth it. The final composition is super balanced and has just the right amount of quilting. Well done!
I'm impressed both with the fabric and the execution! It is a stunning quilt!
Hi Lisa, that's a lovely quilt. Thanks for the intro to Shweshwe. That sounds fascinating :-)
So modern, so chic - Love it. Lisa, you know it is so striking also because your piecing is perfect.
This is really really super! It looks fabulous and you did a great job.
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